


Running Interference

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Comment Fic 2016 [140]
Category: Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate, Gundam Wing, Leverage, NCIS, Stargate Atlantis, Supernatural, White Collar
Genre: Gen, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-28
Updated: 2017-02-28
Packaged: 2018-09-27 12:07:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10020110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: Written for the comment_fic prompt: "Leverage/any, any, 5 people (from other fandoms) who interfered with a job + 1 person who helped, no questions asked ("interfere" doesn't have to be a bad thing)."The Leverage Crew runs into some strange folk while they're out and about helping others.





	

The Bakery Job should have been an easy one. Eliot was an accomplished cook; surely he’d also be an accomplished pastry chef. He interviewed, he got the job. He’d be there before the mobsters came calling for protection money from this new business, so they wouldn’t suspect a thing. He’d help the innocent bakery owner avoid the goons, and with the footage from the mobsters coming to shakedown the owner, the Team could help take down the entire Family.  
  
Eliot rose every morning before the dawn and went to the bakery ( _Ronon’s Place_ , it was called). By the time Sophie, Parker, Hardison, and Nathan came through for breakfast - Sophie to flirt with the owner, Evan, Parker to collect intel from Eliot while Evan was distracted, Hardison to use the free wifi and basically stake the place out, and Nathan for the delicious pastries - Eliot had been awake for hours and was surly for it.  
  
They were at it for two weeks before the mobsters showed.  
  
They swaggered into the shop with their fancy suits and their thick Russian accents - and Evan spoke to them in fluent Russian. Whatever he said made them turn tail and walk away.  
  
“What just happened?” Sophie asked, genuinely confused.  
  
No one could explain it.  
  
But the Family retreated from that entire section of town.  
  
“I don’t get it at all,” Eliot said. “Evan used to be in the Air Force.”  
  
“Why, did he speak Russian with a distinctive accent?” Hardison asked, while they were crowded around the bar in the gastro pub and trying to figure out what happened.  
  
“His hair cut was very distinctive.” Eliot sipped his beer. “It’s the Air Force. They’re not that badass. And he wasn’t pararescue.”  
  
“What was it he even said?” Nathan asked.  
  
“He name-dropped some Russian general.” Hardison had run the audio from their surveillance footage through a translation algorithm. “And also the name of the Egyptian god Anubis.”  
  
“That makes zero sense.” Nathan shook his head.  
  
Sophie shrugged. “We still get paid, though.”   
  
And that was that.  
  


*

  
  
Stealing from a church orphanage was downright despicable. The Christmas Charity Job was one Nathan would have taken for free. Sophie was going in as a new parishioner, Nathan as a reporter. Parker was going to steal the donation box before the actual thief could get to it. Hardison was running surveillance from Lucille, parked across the street from the church. And Eliot would be on-hand to beat down the actual thief if necessary.  
  
Nathan supposed he should have seen it coming when the parishioner who’d hired them was the actual thief.  
  
No one had seen it coming when Father Maxwell, the sunny, long-haired, unorthodox Youth Minister had rigged a fake donation box to explode in the face of the thief, staining her with dye packs like from a bank.  
  
Certainly no one had seen it coming when Father Maxwell took down the blue-faced thief with Eliot-style hand-to-hand finesse and threatened to bash her with a heavy silver cross if she tried to escape.  
  
Nathan ended up donating the money the thief had paid them to the church’s Christmas Charity, so they might as well have taken the job for free.  
  
“He was black ops back in the day,” Eliot said as they drove away in Lucille.  
  
“You think so?” Parker asked.  
  
“The explosive he designed was very distinctive.”  
  
Nathan would look twice before he put money in a church donation box ever again.  
  


*

  
  
They got about three minutes into the Israeli Embassy Job before Sophie and Eliot both said, “Shit.”  
  
“What?” Hardison asked, hands pausing on the keyboard. He, Nathan, and Parker were hanging back in Lucille.  
  
“She’s Mossad,” Eliot said. “One of the David siblings. Time to go.” And he beat a hasty retreat from the gates.  
  
“Might have, er, attempted to honey-pot her one time for a thing in Paris,” Sophie said, and she, too, beat a hasty retreat.  
  
Nathan was willing to write that off as a loss. Parker was absolutely baffled at the way Sophie and Eliot couldn’t look at each other for a week.  
  


*

  
  
The Haunted House Job would have gone smoother, but for the other con artists trying to get in on the gig.

“They’re not real FBI agents,” Eliot said. “Feds have distinctive suits. And cars. Did you see their car?”  
  
“It’s a sweet car,” Hardison said. “1967 Chevy Impala. Looks basically cherry.”  
  
“I swiped their IDs.” Parker held out a box full of fake IDs for all manner of agencies, professions, and walks of life. “Their taste in music -”  
  
“Sucks,” Hardison said.  
  
Eliot glared. “Is awesome.”  
  
“Who are they?” Nathan asked.  
  
Sophie flipped open her compact, pretended to powder her nose, and watched them. “They’re cons of some sort, that’s for sure. But I can’t tell what their angle is. They’re not asking for money, not offering protection. Just posing as agents.”  
  
“So long as they don’t get in the way,” Nathan said. He nodded at Hardison and Eliot. “Suit up and let’s go.”  
  
The mark was more than willing to talk to them, and they managed to con their way into her basement - Nathan as a pest extermination tech, Hardison and Eliot as his assistants schlepping his gear (and their tools for the job), Sophie as the sales manager, and Parker on the outside keeping watch.  
  
Once she was out of the house, they could dig up her basement floor for the money she’d stolen.  
  
They’d just gotten the jackhammer started when the temperature in the room dropped. Nathan paused, stared at his own breath.   
  
“What the -?” Eliot asked.  
  
Hardison said, “That’s not natural.”  
  
A shotgun blast deafened all of them.  
  
And there they were, the other two cons, this time wearing flannel and jeans, one wielding a shotgun, the other a shovel and a crowbar.  
  
“What the hell?” Hardison shrieked.  
  
“Not hell,” said the shorter one, “just the dead.”  
  
Eliot moved to tackle the big one with the shotgun, and he was flung across the room by something Nathan didn’t see.  
  
Details after that were - fuzzy.  
  
They got the money out, though. Right before the house burned down.  
  
Lucille squealed away in one direction, and a 1967 Chevy Impala squealed away in the other.  
  


*

  
  
The Kidnap from the Cult Job seemed like a pretty easy gig. Pose as a repair crew. Go to the cult headquarters. Kidnap the kid. Return him to his parents for de-programming.  
  
They put Sophie and Eliot in an ice cream truck across the street to stake the place out, run recon while Parker installed wireless cameras around the building and Hardison set up the surveillance network.  
  
They found their target in the first twelve hours. Then they had to formulate an extraction plan.  
  
“Something’s not right,” Sophie said.  
  
“What do you mean? Have we been made?” Nathan had borrowed a dog and was walking it, acting as a second line of back-up.  
  
“I just watched several teenagers go into the building,” Sophie said.  
  
“It’s a mostly teenage cult.”  
  
“All of the teenagers had the same face.”  
  
“All of them?” Nathan paused, knelt to pet the dog.  
  
“How many?” Hardison asked.  
  
“Five,” Eliot said. “There were five.”  
  
“Is that possible?” Parker asked.  
  
“Possible, yes. Probable, no.” Hardison typed rapidly. “Let me try to catch one of them on facial recognition - holy crap, that is super creepy.”

“I’ll move in closer,” Nathan said. “Parker, you take the other entrance.”  
  
Parker, who was posing as a jogger, trotted around the block to the other side of the cult’s headquarters. The Sharing was some kind of fancy community center to help keep kids out of trouble. Or brainwash them.  
  
Parker said, “Ready to breach,” and then the door burst open.  
  
Teenagers streamed onto the street, screaming incoherently.  
  
The dog went insane, barking and yapping and straining on the leash.  
  
“What’s going on?” Hardison asked. “I can’t see -”  
  
Eliot yelled, “Tiger!”  
  
Nathan was confused for half a second before he saw a tiger bounding into the street, roaring and snarling and snapping at the kids’ heels. It was followed by a bear, and a horse, and a gorilla, and - was that a red-tailed hawk?  
  
Sophie spotted their target, started to clamber out of the ice cream truck, and then she screamed.  
  
The gorilla swooped in, scooped up their target - who was angry but not afraid, shrieking, “And a light! Let me go!”   
  
“Retreat,” Nathan hissed, and he fell back to Lucille.  
  
The kid was returned to his parents, and they got paid, but no one really wanted to touch the money in case the weird was catching.  
  


*

  
  
“What happened?” Nathan asked.  
  
The Grandmother’s Pearls Job was a good old-fashioned burglary. Parker stole the pearls and returned them to their rightful owner. The swindler who’d taken them couldn’t protest, because he hadn’t owned them legally. Simple.  
  
Parker had just gotten inside when police cars had swarmed the building. FBI agents had spilled out of them, and the rest of the team had only been able to watch in horror.  
  
And then Parker had sauntered out of the building, wearing not her black thief uniform but a sleek pantsuit, in the company of a dark-haired, blue-eyed man who was dressed too fashionably to be an FBI agent. He had a fedora and a stylish skinny tie, and he had a friendly arm around Parker’s shoulders.  
  
“Thanks again, Lisa,” he said to Parker. “Always a pleasure working with you.” And he pushed her toward the van with a wave of farewell.  
  
One of the FBI agents hollered, “Neal! Get over here!”  
  
Parker climbed into the back of the van, looking dazed. “I’m not sure what happened.”  
  
“Go, drive, drive!” Eliot hissed.  
  
As Lucille passed the chaos of police squad cars and black government SUVs, Nathan swore that Neal looked right at him through the windshield and winked.


End file.
